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Friday, May 29, 2015

Best Restaurants in Tokyo - My Top 5 Picks

Now I know the title of this blog post might seem a tad disingenous, but as Troy Barlow (played by Mark Wahlberg in Three Kings)
replied when asked by his wife if the war he was fighting was over: "Well, it is and it
isn't, baby." And so it is with this mini list. At the present time, I
am declaring these to be my current top 5 go-to restaurants, which is
not to say they won't be supplanted about another five or 10 outlets
tomorrow, and another batch the day after.
So in no particular gastronomic order, here they are:

My foodie friend Gerry promised to take us somewhere off the beaten path - not geographically per se, only in terms of what we were to have for dinner our first night in Tokyo a couple of months ago. So that meant no sushi, tempura, teppanyaki, ramen, soba, nabemono or unadon. She rose to the challenge admirably and recommended this discreet basement restaurant tucked in one of the Ginza side streets.

Unlike yakitori which refers to grilled meats on skewers, kushikatsu or kushiage adds the must-tastier element of the deep-fry to these stick snacks. So that's exactly what we had at Olive: the restaurant featured a 10-skewer set dinner menu, and that's where the red flags for me should have been hoisted. For a single price, multiple skewers of perfectly deep-fried parts of beef, pork, chicken, seafood and vegetables were steadily placed on the table until I cried oh my god, enough already! I can't possibly take another bite. But oh wait, is that the calamari he's making next? Get me some of that!

I confess that I would've walked by this unassuming corner restaurant if it weren't for the 15-strong queue of diners sitting and standing patiently by its front door at 11.30 a.m. Tucked away on a back street in Nihonbashi between Chuo Dori and Showa Dori, and dwarfed by the mammoth department stores of Takashimaya and Corredo, Tamai features a purposely limited menu consisting of its specialty: anago - nocturnal salt water eels (not to be confused with unago or fresh-water eels.) Growing steadily in popularity, proponents of anago swear to its
tender texture and other positive attributes such as having half the
fat, being less oily, and rich in DHA (for improving brain functions,)
and vitamins A and E (for eyesight and anti-aging properties,
respectively) than its fresh-water cousins.

I would highly recommend upgrading your order (for a mere 200 yen) with a hone chazuke: pouring hot broth into a bowl of rice topped with the calcium-rich bones of the anago.

Tender grilled anago in kabayaki teriyaki sauce over a bed of rice in a lacquer box.

A branch of the Yamanoue tempura restaurant in Kanda Surugadai, this is no grubby back-street deepfry joint. Like everything else in this tony shopping centre in the heart of Roppongi, this restaurant is beautiful and pristine, and the tempura offerings are made with the freshest seasonal ingredients, all deep-fried in
the finest sesame oil.

My tempura set dinner: definitely not cheap, but it was definitely good.

Boy, this ramen place was a real doozy to find. Hidden in the narrow drinking pedestrian streets of Shinjuku's Golden Gai, the long line started at street level and snaked into a dimly lit alley. The restaurant, located on the second floor, is open 24/7, making it a perfect drop-in to bookend an evening of revelry infused with sake. Orders are taken efficiently via the ubiquitous vending machine; there's an English menu but basically, one should just order their house special: signature ramen barely submerged in dried sardine broth and topped with fatty slices of BBQ pork, bamboo shoots, seaweed, and my personal favourite, a still-runny soft boiled egg.

The alleyway queue which I had to go around the block to get in line.

Pretty much had to walk up sort of sideways up these stairs. Those who've imbibed one too many sake shots might need to pay a bit more attention navigating up and down the steps.

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Am always amazed how chefs can make it work in these crazy tight spaces.

It's no secret that I love tonkatsu (pork cutlet,) and Katsukura is pretty much my go-to place for all deep-fried pork goodness when in Tokyo. This restaurant (one of several in the city) features an open kitchen, and each set comes with pickles, miso soup, rice and best of all, unlimited helpings of finely shredded fresh cabbage to complement the tonkatsu.

DIY sesame grinding

The wonderfully tender misokatsu fillet

What I always order: a plateful of breaded, deep-fry ebi (prawn.) The tartar sauce dip is divine.